YAKUSHI: SLITTERHEAD
SlitterHead is a new project from the creators of Forbidden Siren and Silent Hill.
In 2021, we had an article with a detailed analysis of the game’s first trailer and early concept art. If you missed it, here's the link:
Now the development of the game is nearing completion, and a lot of new information has appeared. Therefore, now we will publish another article about SlitterHead and sort out everything that is known about the game at this point.
Game creators
Keiichiro Toyama
The creative director and main scenario writer is Keiichiro Toyama, the creator of Silent Hill, Forbidden Siren, and Gravity Rush. In 2020, he left Sony and founded his own small indie studio, "Bokeh Game Studio".
Junya Okura
The second director of the game is Junya Okura. He also worked at Sony along with Toyama - and served as a planner and game designer on all parts of Forbidden Siren and Gravity Rush.
Akira Yamaoka
The music will be composed by Akira Yamaoka. Previously, they worked together with Keiichiro Toyama on the first part of Silent Hill. It's nice to see the members of "Team Silent" unite again after 25 years.
Miki Takahashi
The monsters for the game will be designed by Japanese artist Miki Takahashi. She previously created designs for Shibito and other creatures from Forbidden Siren.
Tatsuya Yoshikawa
The character designs are handled by Tatsuya Yoshikawa. He created characters for Gravity Rush 2, Devil May Cry 4 and 5, Breath of Fire 3 and 4, and did concept art for the classic horror game Haunting Ground.
Kazunobu Sato
The project will be produced by Kazunobu Sato. He worked with Toyama on Forbidden Siren (Sato was the character designer on the first two games), and also produced the game "The Last Guardian".
Story and setting
The story of "SlitterHead" is set in the early 1990s in the fictional city of "Kowlong" (which is inspired by the famous Kowloon walled city).
One day, strange events began to happen here. All over the city, the police are discovering mutilated corpses; they look as if someone was gnawing out the entire contents of their skulls from the inside.
In addition, bloodthirsty monsters appear in the city. People call these creatures "Yakushi". Rumor has it that these monsters live right inside the human head. They enter the victim's brain and begin to control its body.
And then they walk around the town in this body and pretend to be ordinary citizens. But at any moment, a terrible monster can suddenly crawl out of the head of its victim - and attack those around him.
Will we be able to unravel the secrets of this city and understand the true nature of "Yakushi"?
A game where anyone
might be a monster
One of the most interesting features of SlitterHead is that here anyone can actually be a creepy monster.
And this idea will be implemented not only through the story - but also through the gameplay.
In terms of implementation, it will be similar to the Japanese game "GERMS", which was featured in our article about the "weirdest horror games".
NPC characters will walk around the city - and some of them may turn out to be monsters who are only pretending to be humans. In order not to become easy prey for them, we will have to distinguish real people from "Yakushi".
But how can we find the monster disguised as an ordinary citizen? There are two ways to do this:
1) When approaching the monster, a purple aura appears on the screen and a strange sound is heard. If we hear this sound, it means the monster is very close (this is reminiscent of the radio in Silent Hill).
2) Sometimes we can see the world through the eyes of the monster for a few seconds (this is very similar to the "sight-jack" system from Forbidden Siren). Thanks to these short visions, we can figure out where the monster is currently standing.
Body Possession System
Another unusual idea is body possession and the transmigration of souls.
The main character in SlitterHead is not entirely human. In fact, we play as a flying clot of energy, reminiscent of a human soul floating in the air.
This creature remembers nothing about itself and does not know how it ended up in this world.
It has no body. But it has a special ability - this clot of energy can inhabit any person and gain control over his consciousness. Thus, we can inhabit the bodies of NPC characters and control them.
This idea of a disembodied spirit possessing other people's bodies is very similar to the classic Japanese game "RELICS". In one interview, Keiichiro Toyama mentioned that he played Relics on his computer Sharp X1 when he was young. So most likely, this game had some influence on SlitterHead.
Moral Choices
The system of possessing other people's bodies also brings many moral and ethical dilemmas into the game. After all, an ordinary person can die because we are using his body to fight monsters.
And if there is a risk of death, what will we do? Will we try to save a person’s life? Or will we just use his body as consumable material and then quickly move into a new body?
You can even kill any resident of the city you don’t like. Or possess somebody, and then make the poor guy jump off the roof.
The developers promise that the game will have many such creepy "moral choices”. And this will also be an interesting feature of SlitterHead.
Main Characters
Since we can possess the bodies of different people, SlitterHead will have many playable characters.
Characters can be divided into two types. The first type are random residents of the city. And the second type are special characters who will play a more important role in the story.
They have a strange distinctive feature: these characters usually wear a mask, or a helmet, or something else on their head. They also have a special gift - when we inhabit their bodies, we get the opportunity to materialize weapons from their blood. Therefore, it is easier for them to fight monsters.
Let's see what "special characters" can be seen in the trailers and concept art.
Biker with a sword
A young motorcyclist in a black jacket and a protective helmet. He fights demons using a mysterious red sword (which is created from blood clots). He also has a firearm - a sawed-off double-barreled shotgun.
Girl with a mask
A girl in a red robe who wears a strange mask. When we possess her body, she gains the ability to use long claw-like blades, which help her defend herself from the monsters.
Homeless Guy
He used to be a professional boxer, but now he has become a homeless bum. Thanks to his boxing skills, he is able to fight monsters even with his bare hands.
Investigator
A police officer who investigates murders and tries to understand what is happening in the city. His special weapon is a machine gun. You can also notice a strange detail in the concept art: for some reason, this character wears a creepy clown mask.
Boy in a blue hood
Nothing is known about this character yet except that he uses a huge spear during battle.
Girl in a green dress
This heroine is visible in the concept art, but nothing is known about her yet. But in the art, you can see that her hands are covered in blood.
Woman in arabian clothes
We also don’t know anything about him yet.
Old Lady
Another mysterious character about whom nothing is known yet. But his creepy cold stare in this picture gives off some evil vibes.
A Dog!?
During the game, we will be able to possess not only people, but even the body of a stray dog. I wonder if this dog will play some important role in the story?
Gameplay and combat system
The game will be more action-oriented than Silent Hill and Forbidden Siren.
The combat system in SlitterHead is reminiscent of Devil May Cry. The main emphasis is on melee weapons. However, some characters can also use firearms and long-range attacks. Each character has his own skills, and the gameplay style will vary when playing as different heroes.
The unique feature of the combat system is that right during the battle we can move into the body of any other person nearby. This allows us to come up with all sorts of unusual tactics to defeat monsters. And also helps to escape from the monsters when you need to get away.
However, the gameplay will not consist only of battles with monsters. In fact, battles in the game are rare - and most of time will be devoted to exploring locations and wandering around the mysterious city of Kowlong.
During these wanderings, we will be able to find the "lost memories" of the main character scattered around the city. Collecting these small pieces of information, we will gradually begin to understand who our disembodied spirit really is.
Also, in some moments of the game there will be stealth elements similar to Forbidden Siren. But there are not many such moments, and the stealth mechanics here is not as hardcore as in "Siren".
SlitterHead will have 4 difficulty levels to choose from: "Easy", "Normal", "Hard", and "Nightmare". The difficulty can be switched at any time during the game. The developers promise that the highest level of difficulty will be truly nightmarish.
References to
Silent Hill and Forbidden Siren
Apparently, the game will have many references to Keiichiro Toyama's previous projects. But don’t expect SlitterHead to become a clone of Silent Hill or Siren.
Here are some interesting references that can be noticed at the moment:
1) The name of the game is abbreviated as "SH".
2) The game will begin with the fact that our first character is attacked by a monster in a dark alley and gets killed by it (it is impossible to defeat the monster in the alley, just like in SH1).
3) The idea of parasitic monsters controlling someone else's body was present in Silent Hill 1 (Cybil in the carousel scene was possessed by a parasite that entered her body).
4) The idea of alien creatures pretending to be humans was featured in Forbidden Siren 2 (these creatures were called "simulacra”).
5) The idea of controlling other people’s bodies was also present in Forbidden Siren 2 (the girl named Ikuko Kifune had a special gift - she could control the bodies of enemies for a few seconds with the power of her mind).
6) The motorcyclist character with a sword and a sawn-off shotgun is most likely inspired by the hero Howard Wright from Siren Blood Curse (he was also a motorcyclist and used a sword and a shotgun as weapons).
7) Early concept art for the game showed a horned demon with wings, very similar to the final boss from SH1.
We have already discussed most of these references in the previous article - so you can read all the details there.
SlitterHead and Gantz
In an interview, Keiichiro Toyama noted that the Japanese manga "GANTZ" was one of the important inspirations for his new game. This is a pleasant surprise for me, because I also love Gantz.
The SlitterHead trailers have a similar vibe and a similar level of violence. And much like Gantz, the story will be about ordinary people who suddenly receive special abilities - and find themselves forced to risk their lives by participating in battles with strange monsters.
It's also quite interesting that one of the characters in the "Gantz" manga was a stray dog. And here, a dog will also be among the playable characters.
By the way, Toyama also mentioned "Parasyte" and "Tokyo Ghoul" as his other sources of inspiration among manga. So fans of these things should probably check out SlitterHead too.
Platform and Release Date
SlitterHead is scheduled for release on November 8, 2024.
The game should be released on PC (via Steam and Epic Games Store), as well as on PS4, PS5, and Xbox Series X\S consoles.
However, the physical edition of the game will only be on PS5. And on other platforms it will be released digitally.
My impressions and thoughts
Now let's talk about my personal impressions. And about what I liked and what I disliked in the trailers.
What I liked:
1) The game looks like a mixture of Silent Hill 1, Germs, Gantz, Forbidden Siren, Relics, and Gravity Rush. These are all things I love - so it will be interesting to see how these elements come together.
2) The game has a lot of original gameplay ideas that are almost never found in other modern horror games. It's nice to see that the developers are trying to create something really unusual.
3) The Hong Kong-Kowloon setting is also quite unusual for horror games and brings an exotic Asian charm to the game.
4) The selection of characters is interesting. Each of them has its own unique features, both in personality and gameplay. At the same time, the idea with the weird masks creates additional intrigue. For example, why is the investigator wearing a strange clown's mask?
5) The story also looks quite intriguing.
6) The developers promise that the game will last about 15 hours - and that’s pretty cool. In the early stages of development, I had concerns that the game might turn out to be very short (after all, it was being made by a small studio working almost in an indie format).
What I didn't like:
1) From the trailers, the game looks too action-oriented. Personally, I would like to see more defenselessness and running away from enemies in the gameplay. But let's see how everything will be implemented in the final version of the game. Most likely, an element of defenselessness will also be present when playing for some characters.
2) The monster designs in the second trailer look a bit weak. And it’s unclear what happened to the mantis monsters. In the first teaser, they had human heads and looked pretty creepy. And now they have turned into just ordinary praying mantises.
3) The idea of body possession is interesting in itself - but there are fears that it could destroy the feeling of empathy for the characters. Because in Forbidden Siren, a lot was based on empathy for the heroes. And here, the body possession system can make you perceive people simply as consumables or "extra lives".
Bottom line:
Overall, the project looks very intriguing and promises to be one of the most unusual horror games in recent years. There are a lot of unique ideas and strange characters, and the Asian-Kowloon setting makes the game even more exotic. At the same time, horror games from Keiichiro Toyama have always been famous for well-crafted stories - so I hope that SlitterHead will also have a great story, just like Silent Hill and Forbidden Siren.
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Author of the article: SilentPyramid
Publication date: 08.08.2024
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